Contemplative Prayer in the Desert

“Give me strength that waits upon you in silence and peace. Give me humility in which alone is rest...And possess my whole heart and soul with the simplicity of love. Occupy my whole life with the one thought and the one desire of love...You alone.” ~~ Thomas Merton

When we retreat into the desert place to be with Jesus in meditation and contemplative prayer, what do we do? People want to practice meditation and contemplative prayer but they don't know how to begin; what to do. 

In an astonishing passage of his book New Seeds of Contemplation (1) , Thomas Merton laid out the entire process of meditation that leads, from the beginning to the end of the most profound state of contemplative prayer.

The steps, one by one, are:

* “Withdraw from illusion and pleasure…”

* “Keep the mind free from confusion…”

* “Entertain silence in my heart and listen for the voice of God:”

* “Cultivate an intellectual free from images of created things in order to receive the secret contact of God in obscure love.

* “Love all men.”

* “Rest in humility and find peace in withdrawal.”

* “Have a will that is ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from its deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God, poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him.

* “Gather all that I am, and have...and abandon them all to God, in the resignation of perfect love and blind faith and trust in God to do His will.”

* “Then wait in peace and emptiness and oblivion of all things.”

Bonum est praestolari cum silentio salutare Dei. 

- It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.

“We can, in love, experience in our own hearts, the intimate personal secret of the Beloved. And Christ has granted us His friendship so that in this manner he may enter our hearts and dwell in them as a personal presence...”, Merton (2)

Like a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun like a burning point of heat that sets fire to paper, Jesus concentrates the light of love on us and we feel the burn – love bursts into flames in our hearts.

Merton says that Jesus dwells within us in a way similar to the incarnation within the body of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Dwelling in us… [Jesus] has united and identified our inmost self with Himself. From the moment that we have responded by faith and charity to his love for us, a supernatural union of our souls with His indwelling Divine Person gives us a participation in His divine sonship and nature...It is a mystical union in which Christ Himself becomes the source and principle of divine life in me.”

“Christ Himself ...’breathes’ in me divinely in giving me His Spirit. The mystery of the Spirit is the mystery of selfless love...” (3) 

Little Brother of Jesus Carlo Caretto offers further insight on how to practice contemplative prayer.

Caretto suggested: “Choose one word or a little phrase which will express your love for Him: and then go on repeating it in peace, without trying to form thoughts.”

Especially, the holy name of Jesus is an appropriate word for meditation.

“And with this word or phrase transformed into an arrow of steel, a symbol of your love, beat again and again at God’s thick Cloud of Unknowing.

“Don’t become distracted whatever happens. Chase away even good thoughts; they serve no purpose now.”

“Put yourself in front of Jesus as a poor man: not with any big ideas, but with loving faith. Remain motionless in an act of love before the Father. Don't try to reach God with your understanding; that is impossible. Reach him in love: that is possible.”

“After some hours, or some days of this exercise, the body relaxes. As the will refuses to let it have its way it gives up the struggle. It becomes passive. The sense go to sleep. Or rather, as Saint John of the Cross says, the Night of the Senses is beginning. Then prayer becomes something serious, even if it is painful and dry.” (4)

In order to bear fruit, this prayer of quiet must last over a prolonged period of time over hours, days, even weeks, Caretto said.

“True prayer demands that we remain more passive than active: it requires more silence than words, more adoration than study, more faith than reason. We must understand thoroughly that true prayer is a gift from heaven to earth, the Father to the child; from the bridegroom to his bride, from he who has to him who has not, from Everything to nothing.” (5)

(1) Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation p. 45.

(2) Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation p. 54

(3) Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation p. 159

(4) Carlo Caretto, Essential Writings, p. 166

(5) Carlo Caretto, Letters from the Desert, p. 56